Cruise Ship From Miami Docks in Cuba, Ending Decades-Old Freeze

The sold-out cruise, operated by a unit of Carnival Corporation, carried 704 passengers from Miami to Havana.Credit
Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — The first cruise ship in nearly 40 years to sail across the Florida Straits from Miami to Havana docked in the Cuban capital on Monday, cutting a 90-mile ribbon of water that for years was a symbol of the political gulf between the two countries.

Hundreds of Cubans stood near the dock and on Havana’s sea wall, snapping pictures with smartphones and filming the arrival of the ship, Adonia, which arrived in the colonial-era port after crossing overnight from Miami. The 704-passenger ship is operated by Fathom Travel, a unit of Carnival Corporation.

Isabel Buznego, a passenger aboard the sold-out cruise, was born in Cuba but left about 40 years ago, when she was 5. She said she was overcome with emotion when she first spotted the 16th-century fortifications that protect Havana’s bay.

“That really got to me,” Ms. Buznego said.

The ship’s arrival on Monday caused a stir among the locals, too: So thick was the crowd as the American passengers disembarked that a passing tourist asked, “Who’s the celebrity?”

The cruise was the latest stage in the surge of American travel to the island since President Obama announced the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba in December 2014. The arrival of a ship from Florida recalls the heady days before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, when the island was a tropical getaway for Americans, and Cubans could board a ship in Havana and be in Miami within hours.

Commercial sea traffic all but dried up when the United States broke off diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba in the early 1960s. The Florida Straits became a treacherous barrier that tens of thousands of desperate Cubans crossed, or drowned trying to cross, on rafts and leaky vessels.

Photo

Yaney Cajigal, left, and Dalwin Valdes held the American and Cuban flags as they watched the Adonia cruise ship approach Havana.Credit
Fernando Medina/Associated Press

Plans for the cruise ran into trouble in April after it emerged that it would exclude Cuban-born passengers because they were barred by the Cuban government from entering the country by sea. That prompted a furor in Miami and Washington, and the Cuban government lifted the restriction.

Robert L. Muse, a lawyer in Washington who specializes in laws related to Cuba, said the Cuban government’s concession was probably driven by diplomatic considerations, not because it was concerned about lost tourism dollars.

“If it were purely about the money, they wouldn’t have backed down,” Mr. Muse said. With Washington eager for the détente to produce more commercial deals, the Cubans conceded “to keep the dialogue afloat,” he said.

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The last time an American cruise ship sailed to Cuba from the United States was in the late 1970s, during a brief thaw begun by President Jimmy Carter. Since the 2014 announcement of restored relations, several ferry and cruise companies have applied to the Treasury Department for licenses to carry American passengers to Cuba.

So far, only Carnival and a French company, Ponant, have reported receiving a license to offer cruises to Cuba from American ports. The Treasury Department has issued a general license to American ferry operators, but they have yet to get permission from the Cuban authorities.

For Cubans, the possibility of regular sea crossings to the United States brings the prospect of closer ties with their expatriate friends and relatives living there.

Antonio Serrano, 53, a hospital worker who was watching the Adonia passengers arrive in Old Havana on Monday, said he was there to show returning Cubans that his “solidarity is strong.”

Hannah Berkeley Cohen contributed reporting from Havana.

A version of this article appears in print on May 3, 2016, on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Cruise Ship From Miami Docks in Havana, Ending a Decades-Old Freeze. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe